Are you sitting comfortably?
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| Look to bottom left of your dashboard to 'toggle.' |
One or two fellow bloggers have already touched upon this. I know MadSnapper is on the job! Let me first say...DO NOT PANIC!
Now let me say, there is a bit of adaptation required. This is Google hauling Blogger right up to date. They have actually been quite late in doing this... partly because at one stage about five years ago, there were hints of them disposing of Blogger altogether, in favour of the ***-awful G+ thing. That proved to be a white elephant for them, and the protest from Bloggers was quite heavy. So let us be grateful that we all didn't then have to go off and learn whole new systems like WordPress or Tumbler and so on. (They each have their good points, but none are perfect - and better the devil you know, right?)
And the devil is in the details here. WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER IS THAT OPERATION REMAINS THE SAME, IT IS MERELY THE LAYOUT THAT IS DIFFERENT.
I actually flicked to the updated version back in January and worked with it till April - when I flicked back to 'legacy' due to not being able to multi-select items for deletion. Notably, spam comments. Having to work through over a 100 one at a time was just not on the cards so returned to 'old school.'
Now that I have decided to return to the new, I find that in the month I've been away, they've tinkered further with it. Probably due to feedback... and you DO KNOW, donchya, that you can send them feedback??!!! Very important. If you are shy, or in doubt about your concerns, you can first of all check the help pages. (That '?' mark in the circle at top right.)
The other marks to the right of my orange arrow here, are HTML mode, Save, Preview and Publish. (NB: the preview no longer opens another tab but changes on this same page, and it is necessary to 'unclick' the eye to return to the editor.) Anyway, now it is possible to multi-select...if you hover over a post 'bar' you will see a small orange tick at the top left. I don't have any comments that I want to spam or delete just now, so I cannot confirm that this will allow bulk-deletion, but time will tell. I really don't get that much spam. Only Christmas and Easter...
The text editor is a wee bit closer to other platforms layouts now, and I don't mind it. Just have to adapt to the spatial differences for the mouse-action. I note that a 'table' tab has been added (or I don't recall it from legacy mode). This excites me a little because I do like rows and columns...😉
| isn't | it | fun | to | explore | anew??? |
Oh yes, the useful tools such as text alignment and language tools etc. are now hidden behind the three dots to the right of the text toolbar. (See that under the orange arrow in the image above?)
There are a few things I am unhappy with merely because of the way I work. Not being able to see all my posts in a simple list is annoying me at these early stages; I schedule so many of my posts, and it is a little challenging to track them in this boxy format.
In legacy mode, we just have the listing, and all the dates can be seen in one column - that way I know where I need to fill in posts (typically my Monday, Thursday and Friday posts). Here in the new, the dates are huddled under the titles and between status and labels and when doing a lot of work, it is a little easy to lose track... but I guess a few weeks of usage will get my 'eye' in. Concerning scheduling, my blogs are set on India time, but the new editor only posts by local time, so I need to remember to work a day ahead of myself... or just give in and shift to UK time. (You'll know if that happens because I'll arrive later in your readers...)
A lot of what the new setup is about is 'test it and see' - so don't be afraid of it! I know that a lot of folk have been having an issue with the placement and sizing of images. Permit me to take you through the process, as this IS something that has changed quite a bit in appearance (although the basics are still the same).
On selecting the image icon, you are presented with choices.
These are the same as offered previously. The difference in the 'upload', though, is you are presented with another screen, and here, now, you can opt to simply drag and drop. I have done that for all these screenshots and found it very straightforward. Otherwise, you can continue with the upload function and select from your files.
As to placement and sizing, click on the image once uploaded and it will phase to blue, with a little tab showing alignment icons, a 'pen' and an icon for adding a caption.
Clicking the 'pen' offers the resizing options.
If you are not familiar with 'alt text', that is useful to those who use text to speech facilities - i.e., those who have difficulty with sight. Clicking images with the alt text on them enables their system to narrate the image. Title text provides a hover description; if you hover over the first image I placed on this post, you will see that in use.
It is worth mentioning, too, that when in preview mode, you will see a bar at the bottom which enables different views. If yours is anything like mine, it will look as if tablet and phone views for this blog are a complete pig's ear. However, when I open the blog in my own tablet, it reads perfectly well. Could I make a request of you, dear readers, to advise me (if you read on your mobile units), whether this blog is tablet/phone-friendly???
So that's the basics and I say again, it is really only a matter of taste it and see, knowing that this will be the only thing on the menu before long. The option to return to the legacy mode will be available until then, but (unless there is a major protest) it will probably then disappear.
Have you tried out the new version? What are your thoughts?
